The role of habituation in the adjustment to urban life: An experimental approach with burrowing owls

•Burrowing owl recognize when a human stimulus ceases to be a threat.•Habituation plays a role in urban colonization processes of Burrowing owls.•This study highlights the role of behavioural flexibility in owls’ urban settlement. Birds exhibit variation in fear behaviour in response to an approachi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavioural processes 2018-12, Vol.157, p.250-255
Main Authors: Cavalli, M., Baladrón, A.V., Isacch, J.P., Biondi, L.M., Bó, M.S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adjustment
Aggression - physiology
Animal behavior
Animals
Argentina
Behavior, Animal - physiology
Burrowing owls
Ecosystem
Fear
Fear - physiology
Female
Flight initiation distance
Habitats
Habituation
Habituation, Psychophysiologic - physiology
Humans
Male
Owls
Rural habitats
Strigiformes - physiology
Urban habitats
Urbanism
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Summary:•Burrowing owl recognize when a human stimulus ceases to be a threat.•Habituation plays a role in urban colonization processes of Burrowing owls.•This study highlights the role of behavioural flexibility in owls’ urban settlement. Birds exhibit variation in fear behaviour in response to an approaching human within and between species and across different habitat contexts. We analyze urban and rural burrowing owls’ variation in risk perception along separate but consecutive days (Treatment 1) and risk perception within the same day (Treatment 2). Fear behaviour was measured as flight initiation distances (FIDs) and aggressiveness level when a pedestrian approached repeatedly to an owl individual. We predict that the attenuation in fear response along treatments should add support to the habituation hypothesis (decrease the response to a repeatedly stimulus after verifying that it is irrelevant) while consistency in behaviour might be indicative of a personality trait. We found that FID decreased for measurements made on both treatments in rural owls and also in urban owls for Treatment 2. These results are compatible with a habituation process. We found that aggressiveness remained invariable along treatments in both habitats suggesting that different mechanisms underlie these behavioural responses. Our results suggest that owls’ risk perception to humans can be adjusted based on environmental risk perception and that individuals are able to recognize and learn when a stimuli stops being a threat.
ISSN:0376-6357
1872-8308
DOI:10.1016/j.beproc.2018.10.011